The Choice of Artemis Crock
by clumsy.carrie
Summary: Artemis was just starting to like Gotham Academy when a small militia comes in, takes Dick Grayson hostage, and leaves her scrambling to catch up. With no allies and desperate to save her friend, Artemis has no choice but to take charge of the situation. Even if she must tell her new school her parentage. ONESHOT


Hi Y'all!

First YJ fanfic, but I've read heaps, and God knows I've watched enough YJ in the sense that I've watched all of the YJ. I set this after Artemis knowing that Dick is Robin. So sometime after the season 1 finale but before season 2.

Read, review, live your life.

xx

* * *

_Present_

They were going to kill Dick Grayson.

The thought made her head spin until, like a camera lens twisting into focus, she realized that the time to squirm and play helpless was over. Carefully, gracefully, she lowered her hands from the back of her head, putting them on either side of her knees, and lightly pushed herself to her feet. "_What the fuck are you doing_?" Riley whispered to her frantically. She looked up at her friend and smiled slightly.

"_Sorry._" She whispered back, lifting her head carefully as she stood up slowly, deliberately. Dick's eyes locked with hers immediately, his blue eyes wide and panicked. It occurred to her that she'd never seen either version of him—Robin _or_ Dick—look this way, before.

"Girl, _sit down_." The order came from behind her, and she heard foot steps, felt the slight breeze created by the only movement in the whole auditorium, behind her. She felt hyperaware and wondered, briefly, if this was how Wally felt all the time, like everyone around him was moving too slowly. Wally. His name made her heart rate double, a lump rise in her throat. She was forcing the other shoe to drop, here, and she had sense enough to know that if this failed, the instigator would be the first one killed. "_Sit down_." The man from before growled again; now he was right behind her. She saw Babs, a few rows ahead of her, twist to glance back at her. Below her, Riley sobbed.

"Please, Arty." Riley whispered. "Sit down."

"Sit, before I make you." The man hissed, his gun jamming into her lower back, and then the cold calculations took over, all of her training making her head settle coldly into the old Artemis. Artemis almost laughed as she realized his mistake.

_Now she knew where his gun was_.

_Three Hours Before_

"The only thing that could ever make _Paradise Lost_ worse is the fucking Gotham metro." Riley mumbled tiredly as she leaned over her copy of the book in question. Artemis arched an eyebrow at her.

"You could read it _not_ on the metro." Artemis proposed, suppressing a smile as she looked up at the brunette girl. Riley exhaled huffily and looked back down to the book, brandishing her yellow highlighter, her bracelets clinking around her wrist.

"I was with Will again." Riley admitted after a moment, and Artemis sighed, looking away from her friend. She enjoyed having someone to sit with on the train because she felt less _entirely isolated_, but it was a bad time, hearing Riley talk about her boyfriends. Will was only the most recent one, though he seemed to be in the same general form as the others; a vaguely mysterious-seeming loser who was really moody and not that committed to Riley.

"And how's he?" Artemis asked absently. She barely heard Riley launch into a monologue about Will and how she was pretty sure he was _the_ _one_, and Artemis allowed herself to tune out. After all, she had her own boy to think about.

_He's not my boy_, she reminded herself almost viciously. After all, Wally and she hadn't confirmed that this was a dating thing. Just—a thing. She knew they were a thing. Artemis almost grimaced at her own vague description. She'd been listening to Riley talk about her boys for too long.

How should she describe she and Wally? She was sure he'd call it a relationship. And it wasn't that she didn't want that. She did. It was just, how was she supposed to trust that dating Wally wouldn't goad fate into action, or something? She was happy, for the first time in a _very long time_, on the Young Justice team. She knew it wouldn't last, but thus far, she'd managed to escape the notice of whatever gods watched over these things. Wouldn't dating Wally—and _loving _dating Wally—be a red flag on her file?

Something flew towards Artemis's face, suddenly, and her hand was rising to grab at it before she finished turning her head. She caught the weapon, her free hand already reaching for her backpack, at the bottom of which was her Artemis costume—

Except, this was a highlighter, not a weapon.

"Are you even listening to me?" Riley demanded, and Artemis refocused on the girl across the subway car from her. Artemis blinked, then shook her head once; Riley grinned as she stood up, and the subway dinged for their stop. "_Thanks_, best friend." Riley said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly as she turned away from Artemis, her finger tucked in her book as she held it to her chest. Artemis followed her off the train, the highlighter still in her hand, feeling a little dazed.

She hadn't realized that she had a best friend.

_Thirty Minutes Before_

It was the beginning of second period when the men came in.

Artemis was in one of the underclassmen electives—which meant that ninth and tenth graders took it together. Romanian Literature in the 19th and 20th Centuries. She'd taken it for Dick, really; he was desperate for more Romania in his life, even if it was literature that had been translated to English and was now being butchered by his classmates. And, of course, Riley had followed _her _into it. Which meant that, three days a week at 9:30 AM, she had to sit between Dick and Riley as they flipped slowly through books set in places she couldn't even pronounce.

They were just wrapping up analyzing a chapter when it happened: the door slammed open and two smoking might-be-grenades were thrown into the room. Artemis was already halfway to one of them—if she could just get her body onto it, she could halve the number of casualties—when they both exploded.

The searing light and blast of noise drove Artemis to her knees; she covered her face, but it didn't matter, because there was no shrapnel. _Flashbangs_, Artemis registered somewhere in her head. She lifted her face from her hands, blinking, but she couldn't see anything. Fucking flashbangs blinded you for up to two minutes, she remembered. And the deafness—there was ringing in her ears, and she reached up, pressing her hands into her eyes again. She couldn't see.

Who had thrown goddamned flashbangs _in a school?_

The ringing in her ears subsided after a little less than a minute—she'd counted the seconds, and that meant they had to have been at half-strength—and she heard Dick's voice, though she couldn't tell what he was saying. Then Riley's panicked voice and hands on her arm.

"Arty? Hon—" Artemis turned her head towards Riley, blinking as clear spots in her vision began to appear. She could see Riley, sort of—but there was still so much missing, dots that made it hard to see anything too clearly. The girl was staring at her with wide, worried eyes as she crouched beside Artemis. "We have to go downstairs. The men want us to go downstairs."

Artemis felt a frown form on her face before she even registered her displeasure with this plan. She turned her head, looking up—one man stood above her, his gun pointed over her head at the kids in the room, though she had to blink several times to see him. He had on a bulletproof vest and cargo pants, his hair shorn short.

But Riley had said _men_. That there was more than one. Where? She turned to glance over her shoulder, and realized that there was another shape, though it took a few seconds of focusing to make it out. Another man had Dick in his grip, his gun against the younger boy's temple. Dick, whose face was sheet white. Dick, who couldn't fight back because he was just the ward of Bruce Wayne, here. Artemis met Dick's gaze, her heart twisting in her chest. It went against everything in her to go with these men right now. These were civilian kids with no idea of how to fight. If she didn't fight now, there was a chance they'd be separated later, and there wouldn't be time to focus their anger on her. The civilians would be hurt, and Artemis couldn't help it.

But Arty's bow was in her locker. And they had a gun on Dick. Artemis took a shaky breath, then stood up slowly, feigning leaning on Riley, who rose with her. Then Artemis cleared her voice, and said in her shakiest, scaredest voice: "Please don't hurt us. We'll go anywhere you want."

The man in front of her grinned.

_Present_

_Now she knew where his gun was._

Artemis spun in a practiced motion, unhindered by her flats; her hand shot out, already fisted, to slam up and under his rib cage, while her other hand grabbed at his gun. He let it go too fast, too easily, and she grabbed it and spun it, then leveled it with his head, her steady finger on the trigger. She reached with her other hand to turn off the safety, and then she was only a finger twitch away from killing the man in front of her.

There was silence around them before the man on stage bit out a laugh. "She won't even know how to shoot that. Take it from her." He said, his voice tight with this new obstacle.

"You think I don't know how to shoot this?" She asked softly of the man who was right before her. He stared wide-eyed at her, and she smiled slightly. "Think real hard before you take that bet." Her lips curled back so she bared her teeth, a little feral. A flash of something shifted on his face, and Artemis tilted her head a few, precise degrees to the left. That was the trick, to this show. She had to seem in control, now. Even in the face of the fact that there were twenty-some men in this room.

She studied the man for a moment, trying to place the face. She thought she'd seen him before, but it barely mattered. New villain, old villain, this would be over soon, and Batman would be pissed. "Do you recognize me, big boy?" Artemis asked, her voice still that alluring, terrifying soft tone. _There_—she saw the flash of recognition again. He knew her. From a heist he'd worked for her father, or her sister, or whomever—he was trouble.

And then the man made a strangled noise and fell back a few steps, tripping over a student behind him; he landed on his ass, beside Babs, and the blond girl's hand shot out, pulling the man's daggers from his belt in a smooth motion. Barbara rose, flashing a grin at Aretmis as she held up the knives in both hands.

"Trade you?" She offered. Artemis grinned back at the girl, flicking the safety back on the gun before she tilted the front of the gun downward and then flicked her wrist; the gun flipped through the air, and Barbara threw the knives.

Both girls caught them in a heartbeat, their actions carefully measured and perfectly efficient. Artemis loved working with professionals.

Someone behind her shouted a warning and Artemis spun with the weapons, leaping at her attacker with the knives out like claws; the man got clipped on the arm and dropped to kick at her knees. Artemis jumped as the leg swept where hers had been a moment ago and carefully landed on his leg. The man screamed as his bones cracked, and Artemis flipped one knife to her right hand, so one hand had both knives, and leveled them at the man's heart as he collapsed back against the ground. She tapped his assault rifle with her knives, studying it for a moment—this was no handgun, but rather some kind of semi-automatic, maybe an AK-47, though it could have been a -52, she'd have to see the bullets. Either way, she reached up, tucking the knives neatly in the top of her skirt as she hoisted up the big gun, and spun to look at the man beside Dick, the gun conveniently pointed his way.

Silence settled easily over the room, with the kids beside Artemis relaxing considerably; Riley was even just sitting properly, now. Artemis glanced towards the exits. They were still covered. She had to figure out how to get them out of here.

"Bravo." The man on the stage called out; Artemis turned to face him. He was staring at her. "She," he nodded towards Barbara, "is the commissioner's daughter, so her daddy raised the only girl in Gotham more dangerous than Catwoman." The man stepped forward curiously. Artemis eyed the chair Dick was tied to with a note of concern; the criminal was distancing himself from his hostage. Why? "But who are you?"

Artemis considered her answers. She couldn't admit to being on the team. But she also couldn't admit to being Sportsmaster's daughter—which ruled out her last name.

She had two impossible options, here.

She would sooner give away her heritage than her team, though, and so she picked the lesser of two evils. She grinned predatorily at the man in front of her. "Goddess of the Hunt." She offered.

The man laughed. "Got a last name, Goddess?"

"Is it important?" Artemis prompted. He chuckled.

"S'pose not." His gun flicked lazily back to Dick. "You can handle a gun, though. And knives. And I assume that your talents don't end there. Makes me think you're moonlighting, or someone's kid."

_Both_. Artemis wanted to respond. Her mind spun as she struggled for the least incriminating route, the one where she got to protect her team and herself. Finally, she came up with a third option.

"I might be someone's girl." Artemis murmured. _It's not a lie_, she thought to herself. She was Wally's girl. She had been Cam's. So what, if she had been Sportsmaster's daughter first, or Green Arrow's prodigé?

"That's interesting." The man said. "You're a teenager. Which means, unless your mother didn't raise you right, your boy has to be a teenager. So he's either a sidekick or a young villain." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You handle that big gun like a girl who likes big guns, so I'm leaning towards villains…"

"Oh, I _am_ a girl who likes big guns." Artemis murmured in a sultry voice. "But you're leaning the wrong way, big boy. I'm Red Arrow's girl." That was a lie, but he didn't know that.

"I could see that." The man murmured. "Red Arrow has gone rogue and all." He paused. "Alright, Goddess, you leave me with a problem. As the girlfriend of a hero, you are a liability. Your boytoy is going to want you back."

"My boytoy does get a touch protective." Artemis agreed.

"You are also a boon. Like the young Mr. Grayson here, someone with power cares about you." He tilted his head to the side. "I think we shall be keeping you, Goddess."

"I think not." Artemis murmured.

"Don't ruin my fun." The man frowned at her. Barbara stepped up beside Artemis, and Artemis used the moment to scan the room; there were four more guys with guns, and all of them were watching her, their guns on her. She knew there were more throughout the building. Her options were limited, but a violent escape seemed to not be in the cards.

"You want fun?" Artemis questioned after a beat, dragging her gaze up to the man. "You have the children of Gotham's Elite in this room. Word is already out that the school has been taken over. Everyone from Bruce Wayne to the Commissioner is converging on this location as we speak." Artemis hesitated, looking to Dick, then to Barbara, then back to the man beside Dick. "You can't last very long, against them."

The man laughed softly. "What makes you think that, sweetheart?"

"They're going to offer you what you want—whatever you want." She stared at him. "Money, an escape route, whatever. They'll hand it to you, and the Gotham PD will fuck with it and then it'll all be over, in a heartbeat. You're going to get caught, arrested, tried, and found guilty. You and this whole crew." She waved a hand at a sobbing girl on the other side of the room. "They'll put one girl who cries on the stand, she'll look cleancut and innocent and the best of what Gothm has to offer, _corrupted_, and the jury of your peers will have you _executed._" She stared at him. "Unless you surrender. Then it's still prison, but less. And you'll live." She looked at the men in the corner, at least a few of whom looked like they were buying her little performance. "You'll _all _live."

"Oh, honey." His voice was sweet, almost, in a saccharine kind of way. "You have got me all wrong. I don't want money. I want revenge." Artemis sucked in a breath. "I'm going to kill your young Mr. Grayson, then as many of you as I can get through. I know I'm going to die. I don't particularly care." He didn't want money. Revenge meant that he was mad, and angry people didn't respond to reason, couldn't understand or extend kindness. They did, however, hear _fear,_ loud and clear.

"Alright." Artemis acknowledged quietly. She was about to out her genetics in front of her entire school. But what other choice did she have? He wouldn't be sufficiently scared of Red Arrow. She needed him to pee his pants. "Then I must make a confession. I lied."

The man paused, interested, now. "Praytell what have you lied about?" He asked quietly. Artemis glanced from the man to Robin behind him, then took a breath. She was outing her father to the whole school. But it was for Dick.

"I'm not someone's girl. I'm someone's kid." Then Artemis felt a calm radiate down her spine. She was doing this. "Gotham's elite numbers among some very legitimate, cultured men and women. They inherited their money, or made it, all above board." She smiled a little. "But some members of Gotham's elite have never seen the suburbs. They live downtown, and they broke more laws making their riches then years you've been alive." Artemis flipped her hair over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "And that would be _my _dad." She shook her head. "Not all the men at the PA meetings play golf on Saturday."

"Who is he?" The man scoffed quietly. "A corrupt judge? An embezzling banker? Sweetheart, you don't know the half of this city—"

"Sportsmaster." Artemis said the word as loudly as she could—this was the most important fact of their conversation. She stared at the man, watching his face pale. "Wow, look at that." She said, loud enough for the room to hear. "A little scared, are you?" The man didn't respond. Artemis pouted. "I so hate it when my prey don't play along." She said loudly, then looked to Babs. "It's so unfair, isn't it?"

"I'm so sorry, darling. It must be such a struggle." Babs agreed, smirking as she turned to look at the man on the stage. "Now. Let Dick go."

The man didn't move. Artemis sighed, but didn't move her gun; she was getting tired of this. "He's coming. He's not bound by the same rules that the Commissioner is—and, by the way, I wouldn't be so comfortable in pissing him off, either." She clicked the safety off the gun, aiming it at his head. "So what's it going to be, sir?"

"No way Sportsmaster's daughter goes to Gotham Academy—" He said finally, but his voice was shaking. Artemis grinned.

"My dad won't kill you—not because you don't fear death. He doesn't care about you." Artemis said the words easily, because they were true. Lawrence Crock _didn't _care about him. "Besides," she continued after a beat, "death is easy." She brushed her finger over the trigger. "He doesn't need to hand you over the police. And, after scaring his _little girl _half to death, I don't think the Commissioner is going to mind that his daughter's kidnapper is getting VIP treatment at the hands of Sportsmaster." Artemis let that sink in for a few seconds before she glanced at Dick. "Now. Tell your men to stand down and untie our friend, _thanks_."

The man, his face set grimly, raised a hand to his men and flicked his fingers downward. The men at the doors put their guns down gingerly. Artemis took the first deep breath she'd managed since two flashbangs had interrupted her Romanian literature elective. She gestured for the men to walk to the stage and they did, carefully picking their way through the kids they had threatened minutes before, even as the man on the stage untied Dick. Artemis also noticed that Riley put an extra few inches between the two of them.

_Well, _she thought as her jaw tightened. _I didn't have a choice_.

It didn't make the accusatory glares in her direction any easier.

_One Hour After_

"Artemis Crock , tenth-grader and newly-revealed daughter of villain Sportsmaster, disarmed two of the men and convinced the ringleader to surrender—"

"Miss Crock saved the lives of her fellow students by revealing her family tree and its dubious roots. Many parents are already calling for her expulsion—"

"In her first year at Gotham Academy, Crock made high-profile friends like the ward of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Barbara Gordon, daughter of Police Commissioner Gordon. Some are wondering if she simply came to make friends with the wealthy children of—"

Artemis closed her eyes, spots still flying in her vision. Her ears had begun ringing again almost as soon as the men had put down their guns. She clutched the blanket one of the paramedics on scene had given her tighter. She hated this. She hated all of this. Riley hadn't spoken to her as they'd walked out, and Barbara had been swept away by her father, almost immediately. Bruce Wayne had gone with Dick Grayson to the hospital—a precaution that Bruce had encouraged. No one was here for her. Her father wasn't coming.

The irony of it hit her—she'd told the truth and it'd still ended up being a lie. She'd bluffed that whole auditorium into thinking Lawrence Crock in all of his terrifying glory was about to sweep up and kill whomever he could get his hands on. The truth was, Lawrence Crock wasn't coming, much less to kill. No one was.

And, to top everything off, she was probably going to get expelled from school.

She had called her mom on a phone one of the officers had lent her, and assured her she was fine. Her phone was still in the building, which was still on lockdown, for all that there were no students left inside. They wanted to make sure none of the men were still inside. But she couldn't leave yet. The officers had told her she needed to give her statement another seventeen hundred times. At this rate, she'd be late to practice with the team tonight. It was her turn to spar with Wally. She _liked _sparring with—

"Artemis?" Speak of the devil. Artemis turned to look towards the voice even as Wally West, in all of his red-headed, freckled dorkiness. He ducked under a _Police DO NOT CROSS _barrier (couldn't he read?) and jogged up to her, his eyes flashing with anger. "Do you _ever_ answer your phone? I've called you only like _nine hundred _times—" His gaze swept her, which, on another day, Artemis might have thought meant he was checking her out. Today, though, she knew better. He was checking her for injuries, today. "You can't just—Dick called and told me you saved his _life_ and that now all of these idiots know who your dad is but that he hadn't seen you leave and—I _called_ you!" He stared at Artemis, and Arty noticed he didn't look so mad, anymore. "Where's your phone?" His voice was so much quieter now.

Artemis stared up at him, surprised at how close he was. "No one was injured." Artemis said softly after a moment. "You didn't have to worry. No students were injured." Artemis swallowed. Wally ran a hand over his shock of red hair, looking away. His jaw was so tight that Artemis thought it might snap, the tendons in his neck straining at the skin. She realized that he was kind of flushed. Had he run here?

"There were _men _with _guns_ in your _school_." He said, finally, looking back to her. "I need to hear from you when—_men with guns, _Artemis." He scrubbed a hand over his face, then pressed his lips together. "I always need a call after men with guns."

"Well, my phone is inside. Along with my uniform and my bow. So." Artemis looked away, and felt his gaze on her face. She wondered how worried he'd been. Wondered if he'd told anyone else; if anyone else was worried. "We always meet men with guns." Artemis said after a beat, looking down; her hair fell in her face. Wally's hand pushed her hair back, and he crouched before her. Her eyes flicked to his, and he took a breath, studying her. Artemis wondered when she and Wally had started staring at each other like this—not staring into each other's eyes like besotted idiots, but just… this was a kind of silent communication. Nervousness bloomed in her stomach, and she spoke to break the silence. "You're never worried about me after a mission—"

"I'm always worried about you after a mission, crazy girl." Wally's voice was soft, his hand resting on her knee. Artemis lifted her face, looking towards the crowds behind Wally. There were still hundreds of students and police milling around, though the frantic feeling among them had subsided somewhat. No one was screaming now—so many kids had been screaming, when they'd finally been allowed to run. Artemis had had to lead the way out with Babs, and had almost had to shoot one of the guys in the lobby, before he got the message that his whole crew had stood down.

Of course, once they'd gotten out of the lobby, no one had been much interested in following Artemis anywhere. And Artemis had been given her own corner of the huge walkway leading from the steps to the door of Gotham Academy after a mom had spit at her. Sportsmaster's daughter was not welcome at Gotham Academy. "Dick said you told them about your dad." Wally said finally.

"I couldn't think of anything else to tell them." Artemis murmured, not looking back to Wally. "I had to keep attention on me. Dick couldn't do anything, Babs helped, but—she—" Artemis felt the anguish she had felt for the last hour leak into her voice, and she finally looked back down to Wally. "They had to be _scared_. That man—he didn't want money, he wanted revenge, he said so. I had to scare him, or he would kill Dick. And just being a girl with a gun wasn't scary enough, not to those idiots. Having a dad without a conscience was." Artemis swallowed. "I couldn't risk the team. I tried to tell him Red Arrow was my boyfriend but—"

"Red Arrow?" Wally said mock-offendedly, and Arty's gaze flew back to his face. "Why didn't you say _me_, your actual—"

"Because Artemis and Kid Flash are going to be seen together sooner or later, after a mission, or when one of us gets hurt or something, and they'll figure out that I'm _that _Artemis." Artemis said lowly, but she was seething.

"I was joking, Arty." Wally said gently. "You said what you had to. That's what you do in those situations."

"Yeah, well." Artemis huffed. "Of course, I'm about to be expelled for that same thing, and a mom _spit _at me earlier and—"

"Arty, you did the only thing you could." Wally murmured. "You saved Dick. You saved the kids they would have killed after him." He squeezed her knee.

"I know." Artemis murmured. "I don't regret it."

"Then why—"

"Because I was _scary_, Wally! And I don't mind scaring criminals usually but I'm usually in a costume and have a mask and a bow and this time I was just a school girl with a gun and they were still cowering." Artemis stared at Wally. "I always told myself it was just the mask, the bow. But it turns out that I'm _scary._ And I don't want to be."

"You're not scary." Wally murmured. "Or, you are. But—" Artemis rolled her eyes, standing up as she did and turning away; the blanket around her shoulders billowed ridiculously like a cape. She only got two steps before Wally grabbed her hand, pulling her back; now he was standing, too. "You are scary. But it's not like that, okay? You're scary in all the good ways. You're scary in all the ways that self-possessed people are scary. Not like—not like terrifying." He held his breath for a beat. "You're just the right amount of scary."

Artemis looked back up to her school, the stone looming ominously over them. "I was happy here for like literally an hour. Riley said I was her best friend. My classes weren't totally horrible." Artemis admitted, then shook her head tiredly. "Of course, one hour into being happy, I get struck down with a fucking militia of all things." She looked back to Wally. "A militia. At Gotham Academy."

"Any idea what they were doing here?" Wally asked. She shrugged.

"It was about Dick. Some issue with Bruce Wayne, I'm sure." she shrugged. "I'll read about it tomorrow."

"I'll find out tonight." He promised softly. "I'll let you know."

"You have practice with the team." She reminded him quietly; he shrugged, and she reached out to put a hand on his arm. He met her gaze for a second.

"This is more important." He said flatly. "Do you not get how this works? I worry. Even though you were on top of this one, I worry. I'm still thrilled that you're okay."

Arty smiled a little. "No one was injured, except for the bad guys." She reminded him softly. "Besides—" She squeezed his arm lightly. "I can take care of myself."

"Bullets happen, Artemis." Wally murmured. "Too fast to get caught. Besides, I thought—" He hesitated. "If your dad had shown up," she frowned at Wally at the suggestion, but allowed it, "that would be bad." She felt a wave of bitterness—there was never a chance of her dad coming, would never be a chance—and Wally seemed to see it, but said nothing on it. Instead, he smiled. "Besides, you're my girlfriend, and there were _men with guns_." Wally shook his head. Artemis arched an eyebrow.

"I'm your girlfriend?" She murmured, a question in her voice. Wally blew out a breath, staring at her.

"Are you not?" He asked levelly. She could see the way his fingers got twitchy, though. She grinned after a beat.

"I am." She said simply. "I just like giving you shit." Wally beamed.

And across the street, in a practiced sniper's crouch on top of the low apartment building, Lawrence Crock watched his daughter talk to the freckled idiot who she'd allowed to date her. He cracked his knuckles slowly, his eyes sweeping from the blond girl to the men still being led to the police cars.

He had a militia to murder.


End file.
